human
Will Faught
September 2008
Human Works As Phallic Symbols
From time to time I hear people characterize human works as phallic symbols, as if the single unifying motivation for the (assumed) men who created these things were their penises. Do people really buy into that kind of Freudian analysis? The more reasonable explanation, in my opinion, is that things worth constructing, like buildings, tools, and monuments, occupy volume and thus take up space, stand above ground, and are probably tall.
freud human life phallic phallus reflections symbolism symbols works
1 minute
October 2007
Expressiveness In Human Languages
Programming languages vary across a spectrum of expressiveness. By expressiveness, I mean the ability and ease by which you can express something in a particular language. For example, programming languages having closures are widely considered to be more expressive, and hence more powerful, than languages that lack this feature. I wonder if natural (human) languages also vary in expressive power and if so how this affects your thinking and personality. If you grew up learning the most expressive natural language of all, would that make you smarter than those who didn’t?
expressiveness human ideas languages life predispositions programming
1 minute